So it seems that the Roman Catholic Church is in an uproar over "The Golden Compass" a Movie adaption of "His Dark Materials" by religious skeptic Philip Pullman. They fear that it will indoctrinate their precious little babes into scorning the churches spiritual authority. Call me a cynic, but I'm just not impressed by the Vaticans sincerity in opposing the indoctrination of children into religious dogma. Considering the infamous Jesuit motto "Give me the child until he is seven, and I shall give you the man" and the theocratic blackmail that The Roman church exerts upon those who marry outside their faith I feel quite certain that the real beef is that they cannot stand anyone else elbowing in on what they see as "Their Territory".


Welcome to our world your Holiness, Hollywood has been characterizing Witches and Witchcraft as everything that is evil in the western world since it's earliest era while largely giving the very real historical evils that were perpetrated in the name of Jesus a complete pass. So they will just have to excuse me while I snicker softly to myself about their current consternation.

I think that the Church's objection to this movie is about the greatest thing that can happen! Remember their objection to Harry Potter - and it shot the whole thing to fame and fortune, and more importantly introduced children into a new reality where there were wizards and witches and it was serious, yet fun. Kids wanted to enroll in Hogwarts

Hopefully the Golden Compass will take the same path and introduce children to concepts outside of the Christian right. I love it - the world is ruled by the evil master of the church - truth is stranger than fiction.

As I expected - this time the pressure was a bit heavier than with Harry Potter.

they have managed to draw blood!

Have you noticed the "Christian persecution" ads on TV lately? I realize that I should be more tolerant, but seeing them thrown to the lions (so to speak) gives me a rather unusual sense of glee.

"The center will not hold"... and they think that Armageddon is meant for US! LOL I would love to live long enough to see the Vatican over thrown and the spoils divided amongst the nations.

Who knows..Cheney might be their anti-christ. He certainly has followed the prophecy so far

I am currently in a state of severe "Mid Winter Blah".

partly caused by once again having to deal with snow!
But mostly because I just get pissed off at the way Christianists
take it for granted that their celebration of Xmas should be universally recognized as important despite all evidence that it was really an Ancient Pagan Festival occasion and that they have perverted everything about it ad nauseum!

It is about time that Kharma kicks the Christians back for what they did to all of pagan kind. I really hate them a lot, and they are crazy beyond belief. Believe me on that.

As I read the comments made in regards to the movie, which was exellent, it makes me think about the fact that Christians have included pagan rited into all "their" holidays to make them "pagan friendly". For instance, Jesus was born in spring yet they celebrate his birth and decorate the way pagans have celebrated Yule and the birth of the Sun God for thousands of years prior to the birth of him. Also, what do colored eggs have to do with his death?

Gypsymoon

Just for the record, there is absolutely no evidence of a historical Jesus ever having existed at all. there were plenty of contemporary record keepers active at the time, and their chronicles have survived the 2000+ years to give us detail of daily events in the region of palestine, yet there is not one single shred of record mentioning Jesus or any other messianic character with a similar name. The records do record the existence of other messianic characters, like Simon Magus for example.

The Gospels were all written hundreds of years after the era in question, and the saga they represent were most likely allegorical in nature.

There is as much evidence that Jesus was born on the moon as there is for the New Testament nativity story.

owen93 wrote:
Just for the record, there is absolutely no evidence of a historical Jesus ever having existed at all. there were plenty of contemporary record keepers active at the time, and their chronicles have survived the 2000+ years to give us detail of daily events in the region of palestine, yet there is not one single shred of record mentioning Jesus or any other messianic character with a similar name. The records do record the existence of other messianic characters, like Simon Magus for example.

The Gospels were all written hundreds of years after the era in question, and the saga they represent were most likely allegorical in nature.

There is as much evidence that Jesus was born on the moon as there is for the New Testament nativity story.

Until just about a month or two ago, I'd always assumed there was fair documentation of Jesus' existence, from the court of Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate if nothing else. Imagine my surprise when I learned there is nothing!
Furthermore, there appear to be significant and suspicious similarities to another religious figure of a somewhat earlier era, who is known as "Mithra".
This site cites some very interesting parallels between the stories of Jesus and Mithra:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen048.html

Grymdycche wrote:


Until just about a month or two ago, I'd always assumed there was fair documentation of Jesus' existence, from the court of Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate if nothing else. Imagine my surprise when I learned there is nothing!


It's quite a staggering epiphany isn't it ?
Over the millenia there have been any number of attempts to rectify the situation. The lack of historical record was known in the third century!
Christianists have tried unsuccessfully to pass off a few lines in The Antiquities of the Jews as genuine, but due to obvious elements of fakery it will never be known for sure whether Josephus actually did present a singular piece of evidence for a Historical Jesus. It is tainted and thus rendered forever flawed. Of course occams razor tells us that since their is an absolute lack of any corroborating record the liklihood is that the "Testimonium Flavianum" was created from whole cloth by early apologists attempting to inject something - anything - into the historical record.




Furthermore, there appear to be significant and suspicious similarities to another religious figure of a somewhat earlier era, who is known as "Mithra".
This site cites some very interesting parallels between the stories of Jesus and Mithra:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/origen048.html


That's an interesting site. The Story of Mithra is clearly resonant with the Mythical testaments of Christianity.
But honestly the tale does not end there. There are legends of Crucified Saviors littered through every land and their histories. There are aspects of the early Christian mysteries that were well and truly lost to the masses due to the hegemony of the Roman Church which abused ecclesiastic power for common political gain and power for the sake of power.

The most interesting aspect of this all for Traditionalist Witches is that despite our modern neo-Pagan tendency towards distaste at all things Christian, it needs to be said that there is plenty or arcane lore available to the Witch in there.

The concept of a Purely Pagan Witchcraft having survived hundreds of decades is a romantic fantasy. The cunning folk and Traditional Witches of the recent past centuries most certainly utilized elements of Christian mysteries in their praxis.